One album that I've recently acquired that is refreshing and different and wonderful is Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. A lot of the music that I am drawn to is perfect for sleeping, like this. It sounds like you are listening to it through fabric, it is feedback-y, and her voice is uniquely wavering and haunting. I have been listening to this while driving, while sleeping, while walking, but it is most appropriate late at night when you are alone. This album is delicate and hazy, and the best recent release I have heard.
"Love is enormous/ It's lifting me up/ I'd rather be sleeping."
Try a track: Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather be Sleeping
Fuck yeah! That Grouper album is excellent; it far exceeded my expectations from her previous work.
ReplyDeleteFor suggestions in a similar vein, I'd recommend:
-- the first four albums by Labradford
maybe this one's obvious? or perhaps not. Labradford were a r Richmond band from the 90's, the first ever band on Kranky, and the definitive word on slow, somber, reverb- and bass-heavy naptime dreamrock. Their second album, "A Stable Reference" is my favorite, although everything up through "Mi Media Naranja" is amazing.
http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/artists/labradford.html
(scroll down to the good stuff...)
-- Foehn - "Hidden Cinema Soundtrack"
Foehn (pronounced "fayne") was a British woman named Deb Parsons; in the mid-90s' she used to collaborate a lot with Matt Elliott from Third Eye Foundation, and her music shares a similar aesthetic, except much more somber / downtempo / post-concrète and moody. Her third album was the best one, and the first in FatCat's "splinter" series (which later introduced the world to Sigur Ros, Animal Collective, etc). I avidly tried to track some new material / updates from her a few years ago, but was told by the Daves at FatCat that she's "retired" from music, sadly...
http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/release.php?id=90
-- Windy & Carl - "a Drawing of Sound"
W&C's newer stuff is much more polite/simple, but their second full-length (from 1996) has really got some teeth; it perfectly balances minimalist guitar drone with muddy, subdued, stretched-out post-shoegazer makeout songs. "Lighthouse" is one of my favorite tracks ever.
http://allegory-of-allergies.blogspot.com/2008/04/windy-carl-drawing-of-sound-1996.html
also worthwhile: the work of Jessica Bailiff, who is often dismissed as a Windy&Carl soundalike, although I prefer to think of her as a smarter version of Flying Saucer Attack.
(A lot of people also seem to love Charalambides, although I've never been particularly impressed...)
Happy Listening,
-James Ford
nailgunmedia.com